Commercial or industrial appliances and other equipment may cost an institution multiple times more (purchase price) than similar appliances or equipment made for individual or residential use. In order for an institution, for example, a hospital, to acquire such equipment for its business use, significant capital must usually be paid up-front by the institution. As an alternative, loan or lease arrangements can be made for the appliances that would require fixed periodic (typically monthly) payments to be made regardless of the cash flow or revenue derived by the institution during the period of the arrangement.
Many institutions such as hotels, hospitals, nursing homes or other health care facilities who may benefit from the acquisition of such equipment as commercial laundry systems may not have the financial wherewithal to incur the significant up-front capital costs to acquire such equipment. Moreover, some institutions may not even have adequate periodic cash flow to satisfy loan or lease arrangements for such equipment. The case of a summer camp, which is only open 12 weeks of the year, for example, does not have sufficient cash flow during the 40 weeks of the year in which the camp is closed to meet loan/lease arrangements for the equipment (which may span a number of years).
As a result, many institutions that would benefit from the use of the equipment are in effect prohibited from access to the equipment, or are forced to incur higher costs for outside services that would otherwise be provided by the equipment.
The invention avoids the necessity of an institution to expend significant capital up-front or incur fixed periodic rent payments under a lease to acquire commercial appliances or equipment. Instead, in accordance with the invention, the cost of acquisition is directly correlated to the utilization of the equipment made by the institution during its regular business operations. Where the institution is a hotel and the commercial equipment is a laundry system, for example, the initial cost of acquiring the laundry system may be limited only to the installation of the system. The cost of purchasing the laundry system can then be tied to the particular use made of the system by the hotel. The unique ability of the invention to tie the acquisition cost of the laundry system to the actual utility of the system greatly enhances the ability of institutions to acquire the system.
In accordance with the invention, equipment is provided with a controller that stores xe2x80x9cpointsxe2x80x9d representing payments made towards the purchase or use of the equipment. Every time the equipment, for example, a washing machine, performs a cycle, a portion of the stored points are debited from a stored balance. The institution purchasing the washing machine thus pays for the machine over each wash cycle. When the balance of the stored points reaches zero, or is less than the number of points needed to perform a particular machine function, the machine becomes inoperable. In order for the institution to regain use of the machine additional points must be added to the stored point balance.
A user or institution attempting to replenish a stored point balance may obtain a unique machine code which is generated by the machine. This machine code is submitted to the seller of the machine, together with an additional payment towards the purchase of the machine. The seller inputs the machine code into a system controller, together with the amount of the payment received. The system controller, in accordance with the invention, then generates a unique authorization code for output to the user/institution. This authorization code may be input to the machine to effectuate replenishment of the stored point balance, so as to permit further use of the machine. As a result, the invention realizes a xe2x80x9cpay-per-washxe2x80x9d system that allows an institution to acquire a washing machine or other equipment without making any significant up-front payment nor any obligation to make fixed periodic payments.